Michael Blowhard has an interesting reflection on a recent exchange with the academics over at Crooked Timber. All I can say is that he is a man of great patience, and the only dissent I would add is that most of the CT gang are not strict humanists but rather inhabit the greyland of social science (and even the philosophers work in fields like probability theory and politics which are not artistically humanistic).

But it go me thinking, my problem with CT is not their politics, that is their reflexive Leftism, as I believe 3/4 of political distinctions are about flavors of norms and ultimate ends rather than disagreemant on means (and the means are what takes brainwork). After all, Aziz and John are rather unequivocal Democrats with whom I am on good terms. Rather, it is their perpetual sneer at dissent, their paradoxical pose of simultaneous egalitarianism (Republicans believe in plutocracy!) and elitism (the academy is an intellectual aristocracy!).

Yet I come not to bury CT, but praise a suggestion that John made a few months back: eliminate most academic departments and reduce scholarship down to a few core fields like literature, history, mathematics and philosophy. In this scheme, if I recall correctly, John would slot in much of social science into history, and the natural sciences would be included in philosophy (natural philosophy that is). I might quibble on the details, but in the generality I tend to favor such an amalgamation as opposed to the profusion of various hybrid disciplines (biochemistry, political philosophy, etc.).

It also got me thinking about a peculiar historical anecdote. In the 1600s Transylvania was a hotbed of Reformed Christianity, and had close ties with Western European intellectuals. And this was one reason that many Transylvanian students (most of whom were Hungarian by ethnic origin) would show up at Oxford and other English universities to learn at the feet of other Protestants. The peculiarity was they often didn't know English, but they did know Latin, which is what the lectures were being taught in!